


A Mind That's Weak

by ballantine



Series: Departures [1]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Amnesia, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Mindwiping, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 01:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1450060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballantine/pseuds/ballantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles had always been a curious lad. His family used to say that curiosity was his true mutation—the telepathy just an extension. </p><p>Faced now with this boy, his curiosity was positively ravenous; he wanted to know who Lehnsherr was, what he could do—and why they wanted Charles to wipe his memory clean away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mind That's Weak

_Mirador City, Capital of Genosha (principal planet of the Vega System)  
Year 3665 _(Charles is 17, Erik is 22)

 

The request was unorthodox, normally unthinkable.

Charles rubbed idly at his temple, and looked up from his book to study the young man who sat in Forge Restraints across the room.

The other boy had stopped yelling half an hour ago, but it was taking a little longer for his thoughts to settle. He sat quietly staring down at the table in front of him, pale and tense, his fury still evident in the bunched line of his shoulders. He hadn't really looked at Charles since his first furious scan of the room when he'd been dragged in struggling and cursing.

Charles had been taught from an early age that it was impolite to use his telepathy for anything beyond superficial scanning unless he had permission. All the same, that didn't mean he didn't regularly pick up stronger thoughts and emotions; the human consciousness was a loud and needy thing. This boy—Lehnsherr, they'd called him—was projecting a seething mix of outrage, terror, and, perhaps worst of all, a creeping resignation.

But underneath it all, somehow still strong enough to call out to Charles, was a mind breathtakingly powerful, a spirit lively, determined, and bright. He could feel its presence, strong and compelling like the pull of the earth beneath his feet. He wanted to move closer. He wanted to talk to him and watch the flit of his thoughts under his words.

Charles had always been a curious lad. When he was very young, his family used to say that curiosity was his true mutation—the telepathy just an extension.

Faced now with this boy, his curiosity was positively ravenous; he wanted to know who Lehnsherr was, what he could do—and why they wanted Charles to wipe his memory clean away.

–

Charles had been uncharacteristically bored. As a recent transplant to the capital, he had found his interest usually unfailing in his surroundings and his studies. It was, after all, an enormous privilege to be allowed to study at the University in Mirador City. It was the premier school of Genosha, possibly the entire star system.

Everything in the capitol was new and came with an immense feeling of importance—it was in the thrum of urgency of the minds that entered and left the Capitol every hour of the day, in the imposing architecture and shadows of the city's buildings, in the power and politics that created a heady buzz around the senate chamber during session hours. Charles had never been around so many people before. He was quickly becoming fascinated with all the protests and dissenters who congregated in the business and tavern districts deeper in the city. He had grown up on an isolated estate with two parents who were unflaggingly supportive of the Empire and its policies; he knew that inequality and strife existed, but had never been close enough to peek at it with his mind. In many ways, life in Mirador City was more exciting than he could have ever imagined.

But that day's required reading was unusually dense and dry, and the gentle breeze and sounds drifting in from the library window were more than enough to scatter the parched remnants of his attention. It grew harder to concentrate when he realized there was some kind of commotion happening deeper in the building involving his mentor and uncle, Senator Kurt Marko.

Normally Charles wouldn't dare extend his awareness so far from himself, but he wanted to be alerted when his uncle approached the library so he could look properly busy. A school boy's ploy to be sure, but while Charles was in the middle of his university education, he was still young enough to _be_ a school boy. This was how he justified it to himself, anyway.

Once aware of the commotion, Charles reached out and gently tapped on Kurt's mind to access what was going on.

Kurt was talking to two guards, a man and a woman, who were holding a struggling figure between them. The guards were confused, a thin layer of resentment hiding just beneath. Kurt was impatient.

“— _all due respect, Senator, but the likes of him belong in a jail cell or prison ship. He'll cause trouble anywhere else. You should have seen the scene at the factory—”_

“ _I'm well aware of the protocol, thank you. I did not tell you to bring him here for some frivolous amusement or misplaced pity. I saw the pictures. He's a monster. But I've just been informed that a colleague has thought of another use for him. Now come along.”_

Kurt's mind was clear: they were bringing the criminal to the library. Specifically, Charles saw with puzzlement and not a little anticipation, they were bringing the criminal to _him_.

When the door to the library opened five minutes later, Charles made sure he looked adequately absorbed in his reading and therefore adequately startled at the intrusion. He made a show of marking his place in the book and closing it before looking up at the four figures.

He need not have bothered with the show; all their attention was on the shackled man, who was resisting violently and spitting out curses and angry noises like some kind of animal. The guards backhanded him into silence and then forced him into a chair and cuffed his hands and feet in—Charles's eyes widened—Forge Restraints. He could feel their numbing presence across the room.

The criminal was a _mutant_.

“Charles, are you listening to me?”

He jerked his attention to his uncle, who was standing impatiently over by his desk in the corner.

“Yes, Unc—Senator?”

The prisoner snorted slightly, and Charles could feel at least one of the guards also register his slip-up. As her attention shifted more towards him, he could feel her taking in his shaved head and start to realize who—or rather, _what_ he was. Charles hurriedly stepped out of both guards' minds, blocking them behind him.

“You are to watch Lehnsherr here until I get back. I need to go meet someone who can... sort this out.”

“Yes, sir. I can do that.” _Why me?_ He thought at his uncle, hoping that he would forgive the exercise of power.

 _The boy's a powerful mutant._ Kurt's thoughts were stiff with discomfort, and Charles could still sense the fear and disgust he felt for the—boy? Charles glanced at Lehnsherr and saw to his surprise that he was young, maybe only a few years older than himself. Lehnsherr was staring down at the restraints and slowly twisting his wrists, testing the strength of the hold.

A gathering of resolve in Kurt's mind brought his attention back to the conversation. _I need you to wipe his memory of today—maybe more. I'll need to consult with my colleague and the people from the factory._

Charles mentally recoiled and hid it poorly. Kurt surely felt the sudden absence of his mental presence, but he did not look up from where he was rifling through papers.

A memory wipe. Extensive gene-testing had told his family that he was likely capable of it years ago, but he had never actually attempted one. Had never been _tempted_ to, not even to get out of a punishment. The repercussions had always seemed too terrible.

The guards were idling on either side of the door, avoiding looking at him but otherwise settling in.

“Could you dismiss the guards or take them with you? Senator,” Charles added clumsily. “I'd be more comfortable and... and, perhaps, better able to concentrate. If they were not here.” At his uncle's skeptical look, he said baldly, “Their thoughts are too distracting.” A lie. Charles could block them easily, but the idea of them being present while he attempted any telepathic work made him feel ill.

The guards did not like this suggestion. Back straightening, the man protested, “We can't just leave the prisoner alone with _anoth_ —we're supposed to watch him!”

Kurt didn't look at the guards but studied Charles, apprising. “The boy's a dangerous criminal.”

Even without trying, Charles could tell Lehnsherr did not like that statement. The other boy had taken to staring narrow-eyed and venomous at his uncle.

“He's in Forge Restraints, I'm sure I can manage being alone with him for a few minutes.” When Kurt and the guards still hesitated, he added, “If he somehow does get free, it's not like I can't incapacitate him another way.” He brought his finger to his temple, a crude but effective way of getting his meaning across. The guards both blanched. Lehnsherr shot him a quick look without turning his head, but it was more curious than worried. Charles was intrigued.

He and his new project were left alone fairly quickly after that.

–

Unfortunately, all of Charles's curiosity did not make him gifted in how to begin chatting with a violent criminal. After some interminable fidgeting over his book, he cleared his throat. Lehnsherr ignored him in favor of continuing to scowl at his shackled wrists.

“So...” Charles said, too loud, “what's your mutation?”

The other boy glanced up, made a mocking show of eyeing Charles's shaved head. “Can't you just read my mind and find out?”

Charles smiled quietly. “I don't like to pry. I mean—I can pick up emotions and communicate thoughts, but I've been taught not to read people without their permission.”

When he was younger, less mature and considerate, he was sometimes caught plucking information from his family's minds. Not always intentionally, which somehow made it worse in the eyes of his parents.

Other mutants would talk about the brutal punishments they had received for abusing their powers. Charles's parents were not like that, though. They were not cruel; they loved him. When they caught or suspected him of reading their minds without permission, they would simply absent themselves and all others from his presence—sometimes for several hours, sometimes days at a time. Once, for three weeks. He learned proper etiquette before too long, though those incidences were always fresh in his mind.

The other boy was frowning, distracted briefly from the other source of his anger. “You shouldn't have to pretend.” _To hide,_ he thought at Charles. The thought was sour; Erik felt strongly about the subject.

It was not any response Charles would have expected. The tone belied a compassion he was not prepared to receive, especially from a delinquent.

When he saw Charles's eyes widen, Lehnsherr cocked his head and studied him. After a long moment of consideration, he shrugged, bit his lip, and then carefully showed Charles images—memories, Charles realized in shock. Few people had ever opened their minds to his willingly, let alone been the one to _initiate_ the contact.

Erik—for his name was Erik, Charles now knew, and Erik snorted mentally when Charles politely offered his own in return—Erik had not always been destitute; for the first several years of his life, he remembered a modestly comfortable home.

 _Before my father's accident,_ Erik explained, _we were well enough off that my father was able to bribe the gene-testing technician to falsify his records._ He showed him images for where he could not form the words: his father's funeral, his mother's struggles to make end's meet. _She became obsessed—possessed with the fear that I'd be taken away if they discovered my mutation. So she insisted I hide it, even at home._ The thought was understanding but heavy with weariness and something darker, not unlike anger.

Charles wondered if Erik knew just how much he resented his mother, how he believed her to be ashamed of him. Before he could ask, Erik was moving on, showing him more images: his mother working long shifts in a weapons factory alongside Erik, growing weaker as months passed—and then the accident.

Charles sucked in a breath; the pain of the memory was fresh enough to be dripping blood, like Erik was just barely holding the wound closed. It had happened recently.

“When?”

Erik didn't ask him to clarify. “Last week.” He finally looked away from Charles. “If she hadn't been so insistent on me hiding my power, if _I_ hadn't been so used to ignoring it, I might have been able to stop the machine--”

“There is no sense in thinking like that, my friend.”

Erik started slightly, visibly surprised. He frowned at the floor before raising his eyes to Charles once more. _Regardless of what might have been, I know now the real cost of hiding my power, of limiting myself. You should think about it._

Charles was about to reply but paused before deliberately speaking aloud. “I understand, Erik, but it's not the same for me. It's not hiding, you see. It's control, responsibility.” He smiled and shrugged slightly. “Just because I can do something doesn't mean I should.”

“Even if you overtax your mind by forcing it to work in such a fixed, unnatural fashion? Or you miss something important because you weren't listening?”

Charles smiled. “It's not so bad as that.” He tilted his head. “So, will you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“Your power. It must be something marvelous, from the way you talk about it.”

Erik's eyes opened wider and a smile finally slipped out, a flash of pride unwillingly shown. Something in Charles thrilled at the sight of it.

“If I didn't have these damn shackles on, I'd show you—do something that you'd never be able to forget.”

Charles leaned forward with interest. “Oh?”

“Yes, I—“ Erik straightened, gaze bright, almost feral. “I'd steal into the throne room and rip the imperial crown from the Shadow King himself.” He paused, looking Charles over, and then added, “After, I'd bring it back here and lay it down at your feet.”

Charles swallowed hard, not at the idea of the crown but at the iron will that would dare even envisage such a thing. “ _Well,_ I _—_ super strength, is it?”

“No.”

“Telekinesis?”

“...Of a sort, but no.” And then, despite a general distrust of the world that Charles had felt hints of since meeting him, Erik rolled his eyes and said, “Charles—just read my damn mind. You needn't ask for my permission, but you have it anyway.”

At that, Charles—god help him, but Charles dove right in.

–

It was glorious.

Erik's mind was built as a towering palace that glittered in a thousand different directions and was suffused with a buzzing burn of pure energy. Charles felt rejuvenated and wildly alive just taking it in, standing still and allowing the chaotic force of his thoughts, memories, and emotions to pass through him.

Erik's mind seemed to sense Charles's presence, but instead of reacting to expel the foreign body, it curled around him, blanketing his own thoughts like it wished to intertwine itself amidst them. So Charles dug further. And Erik gave way with an uncomplicated ease that sent Charles's pulse pounding.

Charles saw the memories that Erik had just shown him, but felt them as immersive rather than surface. What had been Charles viewing Erik's pain as an empathetic but distant outsider became Charles _feeling_ that pain as if it were happening to himself.

The always-present draining anxiety of discovery, the bridling pressure of his mother's potent fear—perhaps her disapproval and regret—the constant strain of feeling the malleability of the world around him and ignoring it in favor of more needless scrabbling, labor, and abuse. The beatings from the foreman at the factory, the hiss of threats against his mother that one day turned into a nightmarish reality. He had been frustrated and lonely before, had never had real friends, but now, with his mother's murder, suddenly the future was closing in, and it felt like an impossibly desolate void.

In response to the thought, the structure of the palace _shifted_ and started to move; plates and beams of what Charles suddenly realized were burnished metal lengthened and twisted like they were made of taffy. The palace grew taller and brighter. Basking in the light it threw off its shifting metallic walls, Charles knew what Erik's power was now.

He knew _Erik_.

\--

Charles moved swiftly forward, and Erik's eyes shot up from the floor to meet his. For a moment they regarded each other, their gazes meeting—dark against bright. Erik's mind shifted and realigned itself like it was testing the connection, like it _wanted_ it, and Charles trembled.

“I know what's been done to you, Erik.” Charles slowly lowered himself, let his knees hit the floor before the other boy's seat, all the while maintaining eye contact. “I can see it, all of it. But you're not alone. Not anymore.”

Erik's expression was nothing but bleak, but at Charles's words his mind stuttered for a moment. His eyes narrowed.

“If you can see everything, then you know I was in the right. What I did.”

Charles swallowed, thinking of the screams and the blood, the twisted implosion of the factory walls and machinery slowly closing in on the foreman and owner as the other workers looked on from outside. It had been first thing in the morning, before shift. The sun had barely risen, and the metal was still blessedly cool on Erik's hands as he fell to his knees screaming.

The subject reminded Charles suddenly of their surroundings and his uncle's command. These things had not existed before this moment, or at least they hadn't deserved to, not next to the pain and dark thoughts Erik was holding.

Charles had never before thought that altering someone's memories could be an act of good, of _helping_ someone. He and his parents had always assumed the worst of that particular ability. But the recent events were like a parasite to Erik's mind, feeding off a soul already damaged by loneliness and suffering. What possible good could come from keeping them?

Charles could save him.

“Erik. What you did, how you were treated—you need to let it go. To heal. The trauma and anger, they wield too much power over you.”

He shook his head. “I can't forget. I'll never forget.”

“...What if I helped you?”

Erik stared. “Helped me?”

“Yes.”

“As in—how? What exactly would you do?”

 _I'd find the memories and associations and pull them out. Think of it like surgery._ Charles smiled. _Or like metal extraction, if you prefer. The important memories—your father and mother—those would stay. I could even_ , Charles proposed tentatively _,_ unsure if it was too much even as he thought of it, _paper over your mother's death._

Erik jerked. _You would still remember it,_ Charles explained hastily. _I would just give you a little more... distance from it. From the pain._

Erik's gaze fell away; his mouth tightened. Charles could feel the turmoil of his thoughts, flashes of insensible violence and tortured screams that rose up and clouded everything for a moment. But underneath lay a shining, desperate line of hope _._ Swamped by rage and bitterness, Erik was thinking about how it might feel to forget the factory and everything they had done to his family, and _there it was_ —a yearning _._

Charles shifted on his knees, unaccountably excited at the thought of relieving this boy of his burden. Impatient to do it. He could see it as clear as if he had a mutation of precognition: Erik's potential, his passion, the possibilities that laid in wait if he would just allow himself to be freed of a trauma he had never deserved.

Charles hand had wandered upwards towards Erik's face: not touching, but waiting. Erik blinked slowly and returned his gaze to Charles, whereupon it sharpened. He opened his mouth:

“ _Wait_ —"

The door to the library opened, startling Charles. He'd been so distracted by Erik that he had allowed himself to be completely closed off to the movements in the rooms around him. Kurt stood in the doorway, gaze flat with disapproval and growing rage as he took in the tableau before him— _Charles kneeling, soft and weak, the mutant thug who had slaughtered key weapons contractors, shipment to the rim's going to be delayed, maybe months, what a headache—_

“Charles, what the hell are you doing?”

Charles snatched his hand back—a move that just made his uncle angrier, given what the hand was supposed to be used for. “Uncle Kurt, I think I can—“

“You said you could take care of this. I've given you a chance here, are you going to embarrass me by forcing me to call security again?”

“ _No,_ I can--”

“Embarrassment,” Erik burst out, rage returning as hot as ever at the sight of the senator. “That's all this is to you, when there are lives out there being destroyed, all for—”

Charles didn't know what to do. He just wanted space to talk rationally. It wasn't something he'd done very often at all, but somehow it was automatic to reach out and quiet Erik's mind. And when the other boy suddenly fell still—his voice cut off, eyes dimmed, face devoid of the animation that had just occupied it—for the first time Charles could ever recall, he doubted the purity of his own intentions.

Charles stared into Erik's vacant face. “He's not wrong, you know,” he said slowly to his uncle. “I can see it in his memories and thoughts. The men running the factory were monsters.”

 _Monsters_.

It was the word Kurt had used before, when he was thinking about Erik. It was the word that echoed in his mind now as he looked down at Charles, still on his knees looking at Erik and now struggling to draw in breath after hearing his uncle's deeper thoughts.

“Do you imagine most criminals and killers go around thinking about how wrong they were to do what they did?” And when he didn't answer: “You're young, Charles. You'll learn about perspective and how to tell an objective right from wrong. How to value the end good, regardless of the means.”

“Regardless of the means?” Charles repeated quietly, but Kurt did not hear him. He was moving over to his desk in the corner, fingers moving quickly over his tablet screen before turning it Charles's way. When he spoke, it was dripping almost ostentatiously with regret and compassion.

“I understand that you are drawn to people, Charles, that your skill makes you empathetic—but look at what this man has done.”

Charles felt the demand in his uncle's mind, tugging insistently—he reluctantly looked away from Erik's face and over at the proffered screen.

On the tablet were images—lifeless limbs and blood creeping out from under the twisted orb of the factory, people running panic-stricken and screaming, chaos on the streets as people were pushed back by armed soldiers, and _Erik._ Erik kneeling head bowed before his nightmare construct with his hands clenched tight around the metal siding, fingers bleeding at the nails.

Charles looked away from the tablet and quietly met Kurt's implacable gaze.

His uncle said, “You're doing him a favor, Charles.”

Charles swallowed and reached for Erik's mind again. It was already fighting his previous command to be calm, so he lifted the command and welcomed the spotlight of the other boy's awareness as his eyes snapped immediately towards Charles. They looked at each other.

Charles smiled comfortingly and reached his hand out.

“Please don't.”

Charles faltered and stared, uncomprehending.

“I don't want to forget it, not any of it. I _can't_.”

“But, the memories... they're hurting you. _Constantly_ ,” Charles added blankly.

“I don't care, I need them. They're _me_ , part of who I am.”

At that, Charles drew back all the way. His uncle, impatiently hovering across the room, barked out:

“Charles, for God's sake!”

“I can't manipulate an unwilling mind,” Charles said. He shrugged helplessly as his uncle processed that and seemed to grow angrier.

“You mean you won't. Listen, boy, if you don't wipe him, he'll be deemed too great a risk even in the Forge Restraints. He won't be put in a jail around here, with the option for parole in a few years. No. He'll be sent away to a penal colony near the system rim. Do you want that?”

Fear spiked and Charles could not tell if it was Erik's or his own that he was feeling so acutely. He'd heard stories about the rim colonies; everyone had. Brutal climates, minimal supplies, and only the threat of torture and death to keep people in check. People never came back from the rim colonies. They were places of last resort.

He looked from his uncle standing firm with no hint of subterfuge in his mind, to Erik, who stared back narrow-eyed and suddenly hostile. Hostile _to Charles_.

“I'm sorry, my friend, but this is for the best—“

“ _No-”_ came the shout, accompanied by a scrabbling shove at Charles's mental presence, all the more upsetting compared to the welcome he'd been given before. “Don't, _please_ , don't do it—"

 _Please don't fight me, Erik._ “Look, I'm saving your life—would you _just_ —”

Charles placed his hand, damp with sweat, gently on Erik's temple, grabbing the back of his neck in a perverse embrace when Erik jerked back. Technically he didn't need to touch a person for his power to work, but at the moment he felt he needed the anchor. There was a thrum of sickly panic moving throughout his body, a mounting pressure, but Charles wasn't sure what he could do to assuage it. He had to save Erik, what could possibly be more right than that?

Charles reentered Erik's mind, and it was a nightmare inversion of what he had seen before, the metal fortress close, dark, and casting shadows. Erik's mind was revolted by his presence.

Charles rushed to do what he needed and leave, feeling sicker every moment he was there. He reached out for the memories connected to the factory—and found them strewn about in confusion. Erik was trying to hide the memories, was actively burying them in places they had no business being, places that would be contaminated. Charles ran through all that he could, searching and gathering all the threads—and all at once pulled _hard._

Erik gasped, his eyes rolling up into his head, his back arching as far as the Restraints would allow, and fell unconscious.

Charles, badly shaken and breathing heavily, sat back on his heels.

From far away, Kurt asked, “Is it done?”

“Yes,” he said, disquieted. Charles reached his hand out again and smoothed Erik's dark hair back from his forehead, not even caring that his uncle was watching him do it.

There was a knock on the library door. Charles ignored it, for once completely incurious.

“Mr. Shaw, please, come in. Your new charge is just waking.”

Charles finally looked away from Erik to take in the new figure in the room. Tall and thin, with shrewd eyes that fixed themselves immediately upon Erik and smiled.

Though it went against his instincts, Charles decided that Erik's permission also extended at least a little to those who would be affecting him. So he peeked over the surface of Shaw's thoughts, wanting to ensure that the other boy wouldn't be as bad off as he would have been on a rim penal colony. _Trying to cover your feelings of guilt, what have you done, will he forgive you?_

He felt Shaw's interest, some peculiar twist of satisfaction at the prospect of Erik's mutation—perhaps cause for concern, but as there was no immediately apparent malice, Charles didn't know what to make of it. Above all though, running throughout all the thoughts and images Charles dared look at, and leaving traces everywhere, was a strong vein of mutant pride. Shaw himself was a mutant, a strong one.

Charles turned back to Erik, who was slowly coming to, his mind heavy and covered. He was relieved that his new friend would at least be going to a more welcoming environment than he had been in previously. Somewhere he would not have to hide.

Erik's eyelids flickered and rose, but the blanket covering his mind did not. Charles frowned slightly.

“Erik?”

The other boy didn't respond directly; he sat up slowly and looked around. His knitted gaze traveled over the room and its inhabitants—over _Charles—_ with unvaried bemusement. There was no anger, none of the betrayal Charles expected to be hit with.

Apprehensive, Charles looked into Erik's mind—

—and flinched back in cold horror.

The mind was intact, the metal construct still there, but the memories and sense of self that filled it—that had suffused it with light and energy—it was all gone. What had been a shining palace was now a dull, empty cage.

“Come now, enough of this histrionic display,” his uncle was saying to him from far away.

“Your nephew has never done this before? From what I've been told by my telepath, mind wipes do not damage the brain; Lehnsherr should have no trouble creating new memories.”

Erik had climbed to his feet and was staring out the window. Charles couldn't look at him, couldn't look away from what he'd done to him. _Erik? Oh god, please, Erik...._

Charles scrambled for pieces of Erik's memories, but they were being pulled away, subsumed quickly within his own consciousness even as he reached for them. In desperation he pushed what he could into the other boy's mind—a short hazy memory of a young boy and his mother, alone but together around a table with candles. The image was unimportant, but the feeling _,_ he had to give him just a little of the feeling, he _had_ to, just so he could know that he had, at some point, been loved. _Erik, I'm sorry. I am so sorry._

By the window, Erik twitched slightly but did not look around.

–

It was a day for departures; Erik left, bound for the shipyards with Shaw. As for Charles, he did not know what part of himself went with Erik, only that he felt it missing thereafter.

**Author's Note:**

> Sincerest thanks to my beta, [twistofapen](http://twistofapen.livejournal.com/), for helping me clean this story up and talk through through characterization points. Having someone to bounce thoughts off of was invaluable. 
> 
> Title is from the song "Sixteen Tons" (...and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt--you know, that one) by Tennessee Ernie Ford, perhaps more popularly by Johnny Cash.


End file.
